Roland Garros
Roland Adrien Georges Garros ( pronunciation : [ ʀoˈlɑ̃ː ɡaˈʀoːs ]), (born October 6, 1888 in Saint-Denis on Réunion in the Indian Ocean; † October 5, 1918 near Saint-Morel near Vouziers , Ardennes , northern France) was a French aviation pioneer . During the First World War he served in the Aéronautique Militaire . He was the first pilot to use an aircraft armed with a rigid, forward-firing machine gun in aerial combat , making it the first real fighter aircraft .
Life
Education and career
Roland Garros was originally supposed to embark on a musical career as a pianist . During his studies in Paris , however, he soon came into contact with some of the new types of aircraft that increasingly fascinated him. Garros broke off his music studies and in 1910 bought a Santos-Dumont Demoiselle from Clément-Bayard for 7,500 francs . He used it to teach himself to fly . In the following years he became one of the most famous pilots in France.
In the still young history of aviation , Garros made a name for himself in many European competitions. He won the Grand Prix d'Anjou in 1911 and won several aviation races , such as the famous Paris-Rome and Paris-Madrid flights . In 1911 he flew at the first air show in Mexico.
With the Morane-Saulnier G aircraft, which was still very unreliable and unstable at the time , he was the first to fly over the Mediterranean . For this sea crossing from Fréjus (southern France) to Bizerte (Tunisia) carried out on September 23, 1913 , he needed just under eight hours. In addition, he often received prizes for various aviation achievements and set a new record for the highest flight at the time with 4,250 meters.
The First World War
At the beginning of the First World War, Garros stayed as a participant in an air show in the German Reich . He feared being arrested by the Germans and set off for Switzerland in his plane in a night-and-fog operation . From there he returned to France. In his home country he volunteered as a pilot. As a lieutenant he was transferred to the Western Front , where he served with the Escadrille Morane-Saulnier 23 (MS 23) squadron .
The MS 23 had several monoplanes from the aircraft manufacturer Saulnier . Its most important aircraft were the Morane-Saulnier L and the Morane-Saulnier N (also known as the Bullet because of their spherical shape), which were used in civil aviation even before the war.
When the aerial warfare began, ballons and reconnaissance planes were the first weapons of war. Balloons coordinated the use of artillery and scouts passed on information about enemy positions and movements. Since there was still a lack of anti-aircraft guns , the pilots on both sides devised different methods of fighting the enemy. A few tried their luck with stones that they threw at enemy planes. Others took carbines and even light machine guns on board, which were operated by an attendant. Since it was hardly possible to target enemy aircraft with these methods, Garros thought during the spring of 1915 about techniques with which enemy aircraft could be shot down without an additional companion.
Together with Raymond Saulnier , Roland Garros experimented with a Morane-Saulnier L-monoplane and a rigid forward-firing Hotchkiss machine gun ( Hotchkiss M1909 ?) With a pull propeller. Saulnier developed an interrupter gear so that the propeller blades could not be damaged when the propeller circle was shot through . However, this did not work reliably, so that propeller hits continued to occur. Roland Garros observed that only a tenth of all projectiles hit the propeller at all, which is why he reinforced the back of the blades with metal plates. The plates were mounted in a wedge shape and deflected the projectiles at an angle that was safe for the pilot. The air resistance of the whipstocks reduced flight performance considerably, but with the new armament, the Morane had become the first real fighter with the rigid forward-firing tubular armament typical of this type of aircraft.
Roland Garros put this new weapon on April 1, 1915, the first successful one when he four German Albatros - biplane attack. The observer of the attacked machine defended himself with a carbine, but his aircraft was shot down by Garros after a brief firefight. The other airmen returned to their airfields after the attack. Garros later reported that it was like a nightmare when the enemy plane went up in flames.
The new system was also built into the Morane-Saulnier N and brought to the front. It produced only 50 machines of this type, to the successful development of a reliable interrupter gear by Antony Fokker were considered the leading fighters.
Flying ace and captivity
In another 18 days, Garros scored two more kills over Flanders , making him one of the first flying aces. On April 18, 1915, after an attack on Courtrai station, he was forced to land behind enemy lines by a hit in a petrol pipe. Garros was captured, his plane largely intact captured . The investigation of the machine at Fokker inspired the development of the Fokker interrupter gear by Heinrich Lübbe .
Garros spent three years in German captivity before he and Anselme Marchal escaped from Cavalier Scharnhorst of the Magdeburg fortress to Belgium in February 1918 and from there returned to France. After taking a few flying lessons, he rejoined the French Air Force and subsequently achieved another aerial victory . In October 1918, the day before his 30th birthday, he was shot down by Hermann Habich, a German fighter pilot, near Vouziers and died. His body was identified by his aviation competitor and best friend, Edmond Audemars .
Garros' grave is in the Cimetière communal (municipal cemetery) of Vouziers in northern France (see picture).
Honors
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Since 1927, the leading French Open - Tennis Tournaments his name.
The airport on the French island of Réunion , where he was born, is named after him.
The car manufacturer Peugeot calls equipment lines of the models 106, 205, 206, 206 CC, 207 CC, 306, 307 SW, 308 CC and 405 with comparatively luxurious equipment (mostly paint color dark green metallic, with aluminum rims and beige leather in the interior) "Roland Garros" . The Elyséo scooter (50 or 125 cm³) produced by Peugeot Motocycles was also available as a special “Roland Garros” model in dark green metallic paint and with a beige-green seat.
For his 100th birthday coined France 1988 10 Franc - coin with his portrait (see picture above).
literature
- Arch Whitehouse: Aviator Aces 1914-1918 . Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 1970, pp. 316–322.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ primeras exhibiciones aèreas en Mèxico ( Memento of August 24, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) (with photos)
- ↑ Press reports on the record flight of September 23, 1913 in ANNO accessed on October 20, 2013
- ↑ knerger.de: The grave of Roland Garros
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Garros, Roland |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Garros, Roland Adrien Georges (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French aviation pioneer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 6, 1888 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | on Réunion |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 5, 1918 |
| Place of death | at Vouziers |